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20,000 frontline health workers to get pay parity - Little

November 28, 2022

Health Minister Andrew Little told Breakfast it had been a long time coming.

Health Minister Andrew Little says tens of thousands of community health workers will get a pay rise as a result of a new package intended to address pay parity in the sector.

In a statement, Little said the announcement would benefit health organisations that are struggling to pay as much as their public sector counterparts in Te Whatu Ora.

He said aged-care facilities, hospices, homecare support and Māori and Pacific healthcare organisations would receive new funding first as that was where there was significant pay disparity with the public sector.

“Today’s announcement is good news for the estimated 20,000 people who will get a pay rise, and for the organisations employing them, which have struggled to keep staff when they can’t afford to pay as much as Te Whatu Ora is offering," he said.

The Government's announced funding of $200m per year to put them on par with their counterparts in public hospitals.

"I know this has made it very hard for them to retain nurses.”

Forty million dollars will be made available in the remainder of this financial year, with $200 million a year after that, according to the Government.

Andrew Little.

But Little added that there would not be changes "immediately for those working in GP practices," though it could change in the future if "evidence of disparity emerges".

“Decisions about what is paid to whom have to be based on hard evidence, and the data provided to me by both the Nurses Organisation and the GP organisation GenPro for that sector did not show any real evidence of pay difference at this point."

Last week, GenPro launched a lobbying campaign to pressure the Government over "soul-destroying" working conditions for family doctors.

Andrew Little said the Government is doing everything possible to address the issue, but it won't be fixed overnight.

Included in its nine-point set of recommendations was a suggestion that pay parity needed to be achieved for nurses in general practice - which the organisation claimed were paid $8000 less than hospital-based nurses.

The Government's new funding will get to private and non-Government employers through changes to their contracts with Te Whatu Ora and the Māori Health Authority.

“I expect these contract changes will happen in the first part of next year, followed by mental health and addiction facilities, organisations caring for the disabled and other types of residential care, and then other Government-funded health services."

Employers will be required to use the money to fix the pay difference between them and public hospitals, according to Little.

“We are also negotiating pay-equity agreements with midwives, allied health workers and homecare and support workers, and have boosted the pay of nurses working for Te Whatu Ora by an average 20% and have put aside $540 million a year for a pay equity settlement for them," the minister said.

“I am pleased that on our watch, this year 10,000 public hospital administration and clerical workers got a historic pay equity deal that saw some with pay rises of as much as 40%."

Speaking to Breakfast this morning Little said initially the rise will be aimed at aged residential care workers where the gap is the biggest.

He said the response from the healthcare sector has been "pretty good" although GPs were somewhat disappointed.

"I think the problem that the sector's telling me is that particularly with the disparity at the level that it is now, a lot of registered nurses and healthcare assistants in the community sector are drifting off the the hospital sector.

"We need that community sector, we need those beds in aged residential care, they are part of the health system and we need them staffed as much as possible."

Chief Executive Simon Wallace says the funding will make a significant difference to healthcare workers.

Little said this morning's announcement will make a "significant" difference, both in retaining those already in the sector but also attracting more people into community healthcare roles.

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